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Copyright, 1913. by 

THE BIBLIOPHILE SOCIETY 

All rights reserved 



NOTE 

The letters herein by Lincoln are so thoroughly 
characteristic of the man, and are in themselves 
so completely self-explanatory, that it requires 
no comment to enable the reader fully to under- 
stand and appreciate them. It will be observed 
that the philosophical admonitions in the letter 
to his brother, Johnston, were written on the 
same sheet with the letter to his father. 

The promptness and decision with which Lin- 
coln despatched the multitudinous affairs of his 
office during the most turbulent scenes of the 
Civil War are exemplified in his unequivocal 
order to the Attorney- General, indorsed on the 
back of the letter of Hon. Austin A. King, 
requesting a pardon for John B. Corner. The 
indorsement bears even date with the letter 
itself, and Comer was pardoned on the following 
day. 



THE ORIGINALS FROM WHICH THE WITHIN FAC- 
SIMILES WERE MADE ARE IN THE COLLECTION 
OF MR. WILLIAM K. BIXBY, AND THROUGH HIS 
COURTESY THEY ARE REPRODUCED FOR MEM- 
BERS OF THE BIBLIOPHILE SOCIETY 




Washington, Dec. 24th, 1848. 
My dear father : — 

Your letter of the 7th was received night before 
last. I very cheerfully send you the twenty dol- 
lars, which sum you say is necessary to save your 
land from sale. It is singular that you should 
have forgotten a judgment against you; and it is 
more singular that the plaintiff should have let 
you forget it so long, particularly as I suppose 
you have always had property enough to satisfy 
a judgment of that amount. Before you pay it, 
it would be well to be sure you have not paid it ; 
or, at least, that you can not prove you have 
paid it. Give my love to Mother, and all the 

connections. 

Affectionately your son, 

A. LINCOLN. 



[Written on same page with above.] 

Dear Johnston : — 

Your request for eighty dollars, I do not 
think it best to comply with now. At the vari- 
ous times when I have helped you a little, you 
have said to me, "We can get along very well 

3 



now," but in a very short time I find you in the 
same difficulty again. Now this can only 
happen by some defect in your conduct. What 
that defect is, I think I know. You are not 
lazy, and still you are an idler. I doubt whether 
since I saw you, you have done a good whole day's 
work, in any one day. You do not very much 
dislike to work, and still you do not work much, 
merely because it does not seem to you that you 
could get much for it. This habit of uselessly 
wasting time, is the whole difficulty; and it is 
vastly important to you, and still more so to 
your children, that you should break this habit. 
It is more important to them, because they have 
longer to live, and can keep out of an idle habit 
before they are in it easier than they can get 
out after they are in. 

You are now in need of some ready money; 
and what I propose is, that you shall go to work, 
"tooth and nail," for somebody who will give 
you money for it. Let father and your boys 
take charge of things at home — prepare for a 
crop, and make the crop; and you go to work for 
the best money wages, or in discharge of any 
debt you owe, that you can get. And to secure 
you a fair reward for your labor, I now promise 
you that for every dollar you will, between this 



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and the first of next May, get for your own labor 
either in money or in your own indebtedness, I 
will then give you one other dollar. By this, if 
you hire yourself at ten dollars a month, from me 
you will get ten more, making twenty dollars a 
month for your work. In this, I do not mean 
you shall go off to St. Louis, or the lead mines, or 
the gold mines, in California, but I mean for you 
to go at it for the best wages you can get close 
to home, in Coles County. Now if you will do 
this, you will soon be out of debt, and what is 
better, you will have a habit that will keep you 
from getting in debt again. But if I should now 
clear you out, next year you will be just as deep 
in as ever. You say you would almost give your 
place in Heaven for $70 or $80. Then you value 
your place in Heaven very cheaply, for I am sure 
you can with the offer I make you get the seventy 
or eighty dollars for four or five months' work. 
You say if I furnish you the money you will 
deed me the land, and if you don't pay the 
money back, you will deliver possession — 
Nonsense ! If you can't now live with the land, 
how will you then live without it? You have 
always been kind to me, and I do not now 
mean to be unkind to you. On the contrary, if 
you will but follow my advice, you will find it 



worth more than eight times eighty dollars to 
you. 

Affectionately your brother, 

A. LINCOLN. 

Executive Mansion, 
Washington, April 30, 1864. 
Lieutenant-General Grant, — 

Not expecting to see you again before the 
spring campaign opens, I wish to express, in this 
way, my entire satisfaction with what you have 
done up to this time, so far as I understand it. 
The particulars of your plans I neither know, or 
seek to know. You are vigilant and self-reliant; 
and, pleased with this, I wish not to obtrude any 
constraints or restraints upon you. While I 
am very anxious that any great disaster, or the 
capture of our men in great numbers, shall be 
avoided, I know these points are less likely to 
escape your attention than they would be mine. 
If there is anything wanting which is within my 
power to give, do not fail to let me know it. 

And now with a brave Army, and a just cause, 
may God sustain you. 

Yours very truly, 

A. LINCOLN. 



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